ABOVE: Lifelong Jersey Street resident James Lee found the Star of David, probably a relic from the Jewish enclave that thrived in the area in the first half of the 20th Century, on his property. Artist Tara Israel's roots are in the neighborhood, too.

STATEN ISLAND, NY — Even young artists get seduced by history. Both of the current Snug Harbor Artist Residency Program (SHARP) participants are young, under-30 ("emerging") and both were drawn into long-ago worlds.

As SHARP awardees they recently completed subsidized eight-week art-making residencies on the grounds of the cultural center. The projects they developed is being shown in two Newhouse Center galleries through next weekend.

Colin Todd became fascinated with the Harbor's pre-cultural center history, its nearly 150 years as a admission-free retirement home for indigent sailors. He got into it, nor only by living/working on the grounds, but by investigating various nearby archives. He even let his beard come in, long and biblical, much like an old salt 100 years ago.

Israel, a Long Island native, looked just as far back, but in her case, she was interested in family history, specifically some century-old ties to an historic Jewish enclave on Jersey Street in New Brighton.

Colin Todd's "Sailor Meditating in Gardens" is part of the third SHARP Exhibit at the Newhouse.

Her great great-grandparents, Moses and Lena Cohen, settled in the area, opened "Cohen's Boot Shoppe" on Jersey Street and worshipped at the "Jersey Street shul" as the neighborhood temple was known. The building survives but belongs to a Christian congregation today.

FAMILY TIES

Israel's installation consists mainly of photographs, some contemporary and some from family collections. She canvassed New Brighton shooting places that had family significance and others that didn't. Or so she thought.

The SHARP installation is up at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art through Nov. 11.Rob Bailey / Staten Island Advance

In the gallery, a relative spotted a seemingly random photograph of an old garage somewhere in new Brighton and exclaimed: "That's where your grandfather liked to park his Pontiac!"

On Jersey Street, near the site of Cohen's Boot Shoppe, she talked with James Lee, a lifelong African-American resident at his home.

Two side-by-side coincidences immediately surfaced. Not only is he Jewish, but he found a Star of David medal in the backyard of his townhouse.

Israel's investigations led her to many places, well beyond New Brighton, in which she can identify elements of her family history. She tracked them on a map that's part of her show.

A SAILOR'S LOT

In a gallery across the hall, Todd assembled an elaborate documentation of a Harbor sailor's life and times, much of it on the walls in the form of manipulated photographs and archival composites and reproductions.

Historic investigation offers a valuable reality check, he points out: "It is through this archive that we can elaborate our collective understanding of a sailor's life and challenge the public memory of the romantic life of a sailor.

Romance is the last thing anyone is going to think of studying some of the photographs of old "Snugs." They're scarred, exhausted-looking, stooped, and many seem to have damaged or missing eyes.

Another wall reminds viewers that blind "Snugs" and African-American pensioners had segregated quarters in the basement of dormitories. A couple of in-house letters lend a little comic relief to the situation. They're polite well-written requests from several residents who share sleeping quarters. They are asking the top authority on the site for new room assignments, because one of their roommates snores, and no one's getting any sleep.